Changes

Tomorrow is my last day of work. Getting married next week, and some other things. 2019 is a huge milestone, I guess. I’m gonna miss my salary, but I guess I’ve been living in a high-stress state so long I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to not have to do anything. Okay, I have that one last thing to do (set a paper) but otherwise everything will be peachy aside from setting aside time to learn German. Gotta pass that A1 test soon.

I probably have not written about it, but the last two years I’ve kept a pet cat while here in Central Java. And true to form, I procrastinated with sending him to the vet for his shots and neutering. Tonight I dropped him off to the vet for that, and on Monday he will be picked up by pet transport services going to Jakarta. He’ll have to stay there for 30 days before he can be sent to the Philippines because of late vaccination. The cost of this is almost 1.5 times my salary, but I was able to get a lump sum from my universal health insurance/investment, so I am just happy to be able to send him home as opposed to having making him stay here when I will never, ever come back.

Anyway, five years here and I am not even halfway done packing. Gotta get to it, then.

Dizzy Girl

Tonight is my final night here, the last night I will be with my cat. I’m not sure if he will still be here when I get back. I’m hoping. Hoping against hope. My mind will always be here, thinking of him.

So I leave for Jakarta tomorrow, and then get on a flight to Singapore the next evening. Okay, I have yet to find out if I actually have a visa to go to Germany, and there is no way for me to know except to get my passport myself, but the flights have been bought. Worst case, I don’t get a visa, I book a flight to the Philippines and lose like 14jt IDR in the process. Maybe I can just go back to Indonesia and be with my cat. I can’t really think straight right now.

Setting aside all the immediate unknowns, a recent bright spot was that I was able to buy a ticket to Number Girl’s Nagoya Diamond Hall gig. Yesterday I had set the alarm, turned on my laptop, got my credit card ready, and then waited for 8 AM. The special Ticket Pia site (they had set up a special one for people who have no Japanese postal address) was down and I had to keep clicking, for about 15 minutes, till I finally got through. I was so nervous about the entire thing I even entered my birth month incorrectly lol. But anyway, I purchased the ticket successfully. So that’s one thing for sure: Japan in September. Just gonna have to get the visa early enough lol. I’m stoked.

Cleaning up a bt, hanging out with cat. Let’s see about tomorrow.

Found music again | bouts of mania

It’s the Christmas holidays. While I was never in the holiday mood – this year that feeling of detachment is much more obvious – I very much welcomed the change of pace. All of a sudden, the long work days (even the ones on weekends) ended and I had three weeks to get myself shitfaced. Well, not really. I found myself with three weeks of nothing doing. Though that is not entirely true as I have a list of tasks I have to finish before the work resumes again. I have not gotten around to starting any of those. Too lazy.

I noticed of late that I have somehow had this tendency of getting really into certain things. A craving for a connection, knowledge, entertainment. In the weeks leading to the holidays, when I would not fly out to Jakarta or somewhere outside of S, I would spend the weekend cooped up in my room, doing stuff like watching entire seasons of shows on Netflix, or the entire four seasons of SKAM, in one weekend. Also some other things it would be best for me not to mention here. And so now those are gone, exhausted by bouts of mania, I find myself going back to music.

So now my last.fm account is once more scrobbling, since yesterday I had been listening to music practically the entire day. And I realise how much music is missing from my current collection, but I cannot do anything about it for now (outside of looking for albums on Apple Music, which in most cases isn’t as the stuff I want are only available in the Japanese iTunes Store) until I buy myself a connector for my external hard drives. Maybe tomorrow. I have to go out anyway.

I am currently reading DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow. It was a very bad decision as the novel is quite intense. It does nothing in alleviating this feeling of exhaustion. If anything, it adds to it. Anyway, I have failed this year’s reading goals, being short of six books if I finish The Rainbow before the end of the year. Unlike in previous years that I wasn’t able to meet my target, this time nothing much happened, except that I was busy or too consumed with some stuff.

I have less than a week at home as I will be going to Singapore to spend New Year’s with the boyfriend. Work in a three-day window? I hope the next bout of mania will be for that.

There’s always someone, somewhere with a big nose who knows

I consider myself to be above the usual Facebook ranting because I don’t even have Facebook. I won’t even post cryptic, meaningful stuff on Instagram stories or on messaging app statuses. But right now, I really want to rant. So to all the bots and casual victims spectators and random visitors, here goes.

I’m not perfect. No one is. But then sometimes one gets a feeling that there is someone who, while not necessarily openly hostile to you, will wait for you to mess up. Such was what I had today. I had overlooked something important, something that I had done two weeks ago, and only today was it raised, very publicly in the workplace WhatsApp group. For maximum effect, of course. So yeah, it wasn’t entirely my fault, but since I am the administrator, the fault is my responsibility. And so it went. A very busy day capped with WhatsApp dread. I’m okay, I was less stressed than I had feared, but I’ve learned my lesson. Sometimes one really has to micromanage. The important thing is to learn from this.

Rant end.

Back to listening to The Smiths.

All is well.

Sitting in the sofa with Kitty Cat, slowly easing into keto (at least starting tomorrow), using and getting used to my new MacBook Pro, and all is well.

Work is still busy, there are many things that need to be done by next week, but somehow it is easier on the mind, even if there are some things that I ought to worry about, such as my finances. And that I still have another year to work before I get a chance to start over somewhere new.

But it is good, that after many weeks of anxiety, I’m slowly getting back to a much more normal pace of life.

Let’s see!

Aggretsuko is my spirit animal.

I just finished watching Aggretsuko on Netflix. Very relatable, at least when it comes to facing a huge amount of workload. Although I wish I could just belt out a heavy metal song and be alright after. In this case, a slow burn. This is what my desk looks like, literally.

Back

I’m back to Semarang.

Actually, I had a health emergency last week and ended up spending three days in hospital. A couple of days later I returned to the Philippines. And now I’m back. Better health-wise, but I guess I still have a lot of pent-up anxiety. I must learn to get a better hold of it, of myself, because while I know I am not at peak stress, my body begged to differ.

I’m at that point again when I am starting to get unsure and have that feeling of wanting to get out. But then, I signed for two more years, I have mortgage to pay, I’m not ready to give up the kind of lifestyle my work has afforded me. But yeah, I am not centered. There is something lacking if life is just waking up, going to work, getting back from work, and waiting for the weekend and the next holiday. I know I’ve been really fortunate, but yeah, I don’t live like I am. I’m not making the most of it.

Burnout

I feel it coming.

Because I find myself sometimes thinking of alternatives.

There are days when I just collapse in bed after getting home from work and waking up past midnight.

Most days I do not find the time or energy to do things I enjoy, like reading, listening to music or watching something on Netflix.

I  am exhausted all the time. That is why I feel exceedingly happy when I have an opportunity to take a siesta (such as when there are long weekends).

I neglect even my daily routines.  Things I now do only sporadically: meal prepping, writing on my bullet journal, moisturizing my face in the evening.

I feel like I do not have time to finish all the things I need to do. This week I went to school for seven days straight. Monday to Friday, work. Saturday, extra classes. Sunday, marking papers. I still have a pile of stuff that needs to be done. It is like the seven days in the week is not enough for all of it.

Teaching is one of those careers where burnout is very common. I feel like this time is different. More than anything, it is the sheer amount of work that needs to be done is doing me in.

I want to escape all of it.

Counting down til the term break comes around.

Sweet.

Saturday that was meant to be spent marking papers was instead spent lazy and in bed. Maybe I will give it my best tomorrow? Just now I was watching a Japanese show on Netflix called Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salary Man. It is literal food porn. Like 12 minutes into the pilot Kantaro is in ecstasy while waiting for his anmitsu. Anyway, why does it always have to be about food? There is this other show on Netflix with the same theme… a retired guy off to enjoy his newly found free time by treating himself to nice meals. It is too hard to watch especially when one is on a diet. But lol, who am I kidding? Here I am typing away with my Starbucks lemonade, having just finished a panini. I broke my four-day keto diet streak a couple of days ago, and I figure I can allow myself another day since I will be heading to a birthday party with a rumored eight-course meal later for dinner. Maybe I will give it my all tomorrow?

It’s unbelievable but it’s the holidays again in a week. I have already booked all my flights (and am now poor by USD700) but other than the empty sensation in my pocket it hasn’t sunk in yet. Going home, being there for a few days, and then heading to Taiwan with J. Maybe for the last time? I don’t know. An empty feeling that hasn’t sunk in yet. Uncertainties are like that.

I wish I can wait for it, like how our guy Kantaro anticipates his sweet anmitsu.

They closed down all the 711s in Indonesia

I flew back to Indonesia Tuesday night. Before that, I had to drop Blitzy off to the vet because she was scheduled to be spayed that evening. She had been diagnosed with pyometra days before, so it was decided that she will get fixed to prevent re-occurence of the infection.

My mom will be picking her up from the vet’s later this afternoon.

I came back one day before our two-day conference, which ended yesterday. I had booked a suite at the usual place in Menteng. I invited a friend to come with me and we will be going back to Semarang on Sunday.

This morning we went out to buy breakfast at the 711 across the street. It was closed. We went up instead and found an open Bakmi GM branch. I googled if there were other 711s close by and I was shocked to see that all the branches were listed as permanently closed. I looked it up and found a wiki entry that the 711s in Indonesia had all closed because of a failed acquisition. So sad.

So far, very relayed except for some annoyances at work. This year is going to be very interesting because of certain personalities. Lol. But anyway, I hope that this year will be much better than the last. I have a favourite class and this is their senior year. I intend to do all I can to ensure that they will get the best results for their external exams… I just hope that said personalities will not be an impediment to that. Hah.

I have more preparations this year, although I still have the same number of assigned teaching units. Somehow I am eager to start already. Somehow.